“She had always been alone, and she would always be alone.” Chapter 1: Kōko’s Solitude Kōko, a divorced single mother in her thirties, lives in Tokyo with her […]
German literature
Morenga
“The dead are not dead, they live in the living.” Morenga by Uwe Timm is a historical novel set during the Herero and Nama uprising (1904–1908) in German […]
German literature
Runaway Horse
“A man who has no inner life is a slave to his surroundings.” Chapter 1: A Seaside Vacation Helmut Halm, a middle-aged high school teacher, arrives at a […]
French literature
Missing Person
“I am nothing. Nothing but a pale shape, silhouetted that evening against the café terrace, waiting for the rain to stop.” Chapter 1 Guy Roland, a private detective […]
French literature
Life: A User’s Manual
“To write: to try meticulously to retain something, to cause something to survive; to wrest a few precise scraps from the void as it grows, to leave somewhere […]
English literature
The Sea, The Sea
“The sea which is everywhere the same and everywhere different.” — Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea Part One: Arrival at Shruff End Charles Arrowby, a retired theater […]